


Coffee

by HobbitSpaceCase



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Like, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Sam Wilson Angst, Sam has Nightmares, Steve and Sam talk about feelings, Steve cheers him up, and did i mention makes bad jokes?, and has the worst pickup lines, and make bad jokes, really bad jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 08:17:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7161968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HobbitSpaceCase/pseuds/HobbitSpaceCase
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam has a nightmare after Steve breaks him out of the RAFT and brings him and the others back to Wakanda.  Surprisingly, Steve makes him feel better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr, now on ao3 with extra bonus Sam/Steve and bad jokes.

Sam is so _angry_ when he wakes up at two in the fucking morning, covered in sweat and with Riley’s name on his lips.  He was _over_ this.  Not the pain – he’s never gonna be over the pain – but this bullshit stream of memory and what-if’s his subconscious seems intent on plunging him into every night.  He had his nightly horror shows when he first got out, but years of therapy and getting his life on track had brought them down to a manageable level.

Now Sam hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in at least two weeks, and he’s _angry_ , furious at Steve and the world for being fucked up enough to drag him back in to the shit show of war after he was so happily out. Sleep for the rest of the night is out of the question, so Sam slams his feet to the floor and goes in search of coffee.

Instead, he finds Steve. Steve looks up at him from the counter of T’Challa’s fancy palace kitchen, eyes red and tear tracks on his cheeks.  The asshole has to gall to _smile_ at Sam, though it’s the saddest damn smile he’s ever seen.  

Given the rest of the smiles he’s seen from Steve, that’s saying something.

“Sorry, did I wake you?” Steve says, ducking his head like a damn kid who ate too many cookies instead of a grown man mourning his oldest friend’s decision to work on his freezer burn.

Sam cuts him off. “Man, don’t even start,” he says, dropping into the seat next to Steve.  For a while, they sit in silence side by side, Sam vibrating with residual anger while Steve pretends not to cry.  Gradually, the anger drains, leaving Sam feeling bone tired and empty instead.  

Steve didn’t drag him anywhere.   The assshole even gave him plenty of options to back out, if anything.  He’s a grown man who can own his choices.

“Have you heard anything about Rhodey?” he asks.  Steve startles, and wipes at his eyes with all the subtly of a guy who’s primary weapon is a literal red, white, and blue target.

Once he’s gathered himself, Steve looks at Sam and says, “It wasn’t your fault, you know.”

A flare of annoyance burns through Sam’s stomach.  “That’s nice,” he wants to say, “but not what I asked.”  Instead, he bites his tongue and lets his glare speak for him.  Steve shuffles awkwardly.

“Last I heard, Rhodey was recovering at Stark’s place,” he says, before getting that mulish look that means he’s going to say something he shouldn’t.  “It’s true though.  What happened wasn’t your fault.  It was Vision’s blast that knocked him out of the air, and my plane he was flying after.”

“Vision wouldn’t have hit Rhodey if he hadn’t been aiming at me,” Sam counters.

Steve snorts.  “And Rhodey wouldn’t have been in the path of it if he hadn’t been flying after me,” he says.  “So I guess really that makes everything my fault.”  Sam doesn’t entirely appreciate the sarcasm right now. Steve continues, more seriously, “This much guilt over something that ain’t your fault isn’t healthy.”

Sam will never be quite sure how he manages not to laugh at that.  “Man, you are not allowed to talk about people and their guilt complexes,” he says.

Steve smiles at him, a little more honestly this time.  “Hey, no one ever said Captain America’s not a hypocrite.”

And yeah, Sam can play that game.  “I hear Fox News claims you’re a hypocrite at least once a week.”  Steve’s smile brightens further.  Sam’s heart does a little flop in his chest; he tells it quite firmly to shut the fuck up.  Now is so not the time for that.

His own traitorous mouth curves up to return the smile, anyway.

“Is that what they made you watch in prison?” Steve asks, mouth curved up in a wicked grin. “Endless reels of Fox News shit talking me?”

So Sam grins back at him and says, “Nah, probably knew that shit wouldn’t fly. Now if they really wanted to turn us against you, they shoulda just played loops of you trying to be funny.

Neither of them are even that clever, too exhausted and emotionally spent for that, but Steve still tilts his head back and laughs like Sam’s the funniest guy he knows. Sam wonders who else would be able to hear the sharp edge to the sound, would realize that the tears beading in the corners of Steve’s eyes aren’t just from the laughter. “I’m gonna put on some coffee,” he says instead of acknowledging anything else. “You want some?”

He’s already turning away from Steve to hunt down a normal coffee pot, when a large hand gently grips his wrist, stopping him as effectively as a steel band.

“Yeah,” Steve says, staring at Sam with those stupidly intense eyes. “And Sam, thanks.”

Sam mumbles a, “Don’t mention it,” and tells his heart again to shut up. It takes him a couple minutes to find a coffee pot that doesn’t look like it requires a Ph.D. to operate, and then a few more to find the coffee. By the time the smell of coffee is drifting through the kitchen like a little slice of nirvana, Steve has stopped laughing, but he hasn’t taken his eyes off Sam.

Sam just knows Steve’s gonna say something dumb and sappy when he finally hands him a cup of pitch black coffee (Sam’s cup has three spoonfulls of sugar and a healthy dose of cream because _he_ , at least, didn’t grow up in the depression and knows how to enjoy nice things). Sure enough, Steve takes a single gulp of his coffee before he’s putting it down and turning the full force of his earnest, all-American gaze on Sam.

“You know,” he starts, glancing almost bashfully away from Sam’s eyes, at the coffee in his hands, “I heard a new saying shortly after waking up. Didn’t make a lot of sense to me, at the time, but I think I understand it, now.” Sam’s got a second to be confused, and then Steve is laying on hand on Sam’s wrist again and saying with all the sincerity of a nun at Sunday School, “I like my coffee like I like my men: black and strong as hell. I couldn’t help but notice you made yours pale and sweet.”

“Pale and the biggest fuckin’ asshole I’ve ever met, you mean,” Sam says, and he’s gonna punch Steve, he really is, but. After he kisses him.

By the time they’re kicked out by the cooks coming in to start breakfast for everyone, Sam hasn’t entirely forgotten the nightmare that woke him up in the first place, but it has stopped feeling quite so all-consuming.


End file.
